About Us

The Cottage Story

With the population of older people growing rapidly, more and more families are facing the new challenges of helping their elderly loved ones age with dignity and remain independent. One North Alabama family with a long tradition of honoring the elderly has brought its special way of caring back home.

After meeting at a Pennsylvania retirement community in 1980, Wade White and Peg Thompson founded their own company and began advertising to attract clients. “Our first engagement was a retirement community in Huntsville, Alabama,” explains White. After helping local owners make the new idea work, Thompson and White spent the next ten years becoming management experts in the growing senior community field.

Since the beginning, the Cottage has dedicated all of its energy into achieving the quality of life goals of its residents and their families. The small size of the buildings, intense emphasis on individualized care through its unique Caresteps levels of care, careful selection and continuous training of management as well as homemaker staff, and its ongoing desire for resident and family feedback, are all features of the Cottage philosophy- do the things that help residents maintain their independence, dignity and choice.